Unmasked Unity
by HesitantNerd
Summary: Seventh year brings new challenges in many things, studies is one, but Voldemort rising again is a much more pressing issue. Veronica Smith, or Black, depending on who you ask, is trying to create a life and name for herself in a war stricken world. Can she make the right choices? Part 2/3
1. New Faces in Old Houses

**A/N: The second part of the Unmasked trilogy, first can be found on my profile.**

 **Chapter 1: New Faces in Old Houses**

"Alright girly, number one Grimmauld Place. You sure this where you're 'posed to be?" I looked away from the muggle taxi driver to the street I was on. Run down and a little seedy. That's what I would use to describe this area, the cabbie was right, it didn't look like where I was supposed to be at all, but I knew it was right.

Mrs. Weasley had known where I was going, it was the only explanation for why she let me leave her and her family at the train station and get into a taxi. She also might have been a bit miffed that Fred and I broke up on the same day she found out we were dating. I don't think she'd just let me walk off though.

"Yeah, no, this is right. What's the fare?" The cabbie was already suspicious of me because of my massive trunk and owl, but his face screwed up even more when I started sifting through my pocket money to find muggle change. I hastily tried to put the huge gold galleons away before he saw them, sickles and knuts looked more like muggle money, so I left them out as I pulled some crumpled notes out of my back pocket to give to the man along with the coins.

"Right, thanks, have a nice summer!" The cabbie yelled as I got all of my things out of the backseat of his car. I waved as he sped off down the street, he was nice.

I had told the cab driver I was going to the first house on the street, in reality I just knew it was the street I was going to. I had blacked out the front of the letter on the train, and just gave the paper to the driver as a list of instructions that were on the back. He followed them quite happily, and here we were.

I slowly walked my way down the street, dragging my trunk and owl cage behind me, sifting through my things for the piece of parchment I hadn't looked at yet today.

Ajax hooted indignantly at being caged, and I shushed him as I stopped and pulled out the paper. I was at number ten.

 _The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix are found at number 12 Grimmauld Place, London._

I read the piece of parchment several times, then put it away, and went further down the street to where number twelve should have been.

Of course it wasn't, why would it be. But the words _twelve Grimmauld Place_ floated through my mind as I stared at eleven and thirteen, and all of a sudden, things started to move.

It was as if a third house was squeezing its way out, I took a few steps back as a house even more run down and dirty than the rest emerged onto the street. This was obviously where I was supposed to be.

I hauled my trunk and Ajax up the steps until I stood on the front porch. I knocked three times, and only had to wait a few moments before the door was pulled open and I was ushered inside by no one other than Sirius Black himself.

"Veronica."

"Sirius." He looked much better. His face wasn't as drawn and waxy, though it was still pale, and his hair was shorter, and no longer had dirt or mats. The facial hair he had wasn't patchy and uneven, all in all, it just looked like he'd had a good shower, and a haircut, and a three course meal.

"Keep your voice down, I'll show you 'round." His voice was no more than a whisper and as we shuffled through the entryway, I looked around at the decor. The room might have been grand and beautiful years ago, but the moth eaten curtains and dark, stained walls told a different story now.

"What is this place?" I asked, also whispering, and as we started up the stairs, I recoiled at the sight of what looked like shrunken and dried house-elf heads.

"My mothers old house, she's dead so it belongs to me now, I gave it to Dumbledore for the Order of the Phoenix- oh speaking of that where's the paper?"

I faltered for a moment before giving the piece of paper that had the address of this building on it to him.

He pointed his wand at it and the paper quickly curled up in flames, leaving a pile of ashes in his hand which he brushed off on the already dirty wall.

"What's the Order of-"

"Just call it the Order, and it's an opposition to the Death Eaters, a regrouping from the first war."

I nodded taking it all in as we reached the first landing, and Sirius opened a door. The bedroom was small, and rather disgusting, Sirius stood in the doorway and I peered around him, our faces mirror images of disgust.

"Is this my room?" Sirius looked at me disapprovingly.

"I don't hate you, this was supposed to be shared by you, Hermione, and- oh what's her name? Youngest Weasley?"

"Ginny." Sirius snapped his fingers.

"Yeah, Ginny. You, Hermione, and Ginny, but maybe not, considering this." He waved his hand at the room.

"It's not that bad, with some cleaning spells it could be habitable."

Sirius shrugged, "I guess, but it's already five, and nobody wants to clean on their first day of summer vacation. We'll get food, and I'll tell you about everything."

I let Ajax out of his cage, and with much difficulty and a few aggressive spells from Sirius, I was able to open the window in the room and let him fly out to hunt.

Sirius said he wasn't the best cook, and he had only been in the house for less than a week, so when he pulled a magically frozen container of Mrs. Weasley's stew out of a cupboard, I wasn't all surprised.

We ate as we talked. Dumbledore and a few others had apparently been by before I came, and there had been a meeting then, which I wouldn't have been allowed to go to anyway because I was underage and still in school, but nobody was coming to stay until the second week of July. Even then, it was just the Weasleys and Hermione, Harry wasn't going to come until later for some reason. Sirius got agitated when I mentioned his name so I dropped the subject.

"So it's just me and you for two weeks?"

"Yeah I know, how boring right." I smiled, but then thought he might be serious, and only when I saw his grinning face did I recognize the joke.

"Well I know it's not very fun to hang out with a sixteen year old, but we should probably make this place habitable before everybody else gets here." He rolled his eyes and my grin became wider.

"That's a miracle waiting to happen, would you like to win the lottery while we're at it?"

"It'd sure be nice."

I technically wasn't allowed to do magic outside of school, but Sirius explained that the wards on the house made it impossible for the ministry to tell. I slept not in the awful bedroom, but on a recently scourgified couch, and the next morning we started some work.

Sirius taught me cleaning and banishment charms I didn't already know, and we tackled the little problems one at a time.

The curtainful of doxies would have to wait, as would the various cupboards filled with things, but the piles laying around were put away, and the several inches of dust and debris cleaned. By late afternoon, the sun was actually shining throughout the house in the now clean windows, it made a welcome change. The only place we hadn't been through was the top landing, I didn't press, but I was curious as to why.

"So what's behind those curtains?" Sirius winced as I pointed to a pair of moth eaten velvet curtains in the entrance hall, we hadn't touched those yet, and they looked disgusting.

"What's behind them isn't so nice, it's why we keep our voice down when we're around here."

"Is it worth trying?" Sirius sighed and shrugged.

"Why not."

The second he touched the curtains to pull them back I was faced with an onslaught of noise.

" _FILTHY DISGUSTING HEATHEN OF MY BLOOD! DOESN'T DESERVE TO WALK AROUND THESE WALLS, DEFACING MY HOUSE WITH HIS SCUM!"_

The woman in the painting was horrifying to say the least. Yellowing skin and bulging eyes, she was practically foaming at the mouth as she yelled at Sirius. Her black hair flew behind her, ratty and tangled, the same state as her black dress. The things she yelled were horrible, and got worse as her white eyes focused on me.

" _SCUM OF SCUM! WHY AM I SURPRISED! NEXT THING I KNOW YOU'LL BRING HALF-BLOODS AND MUDBLOODS THROUGH MY WALLS, AT LEAST IT'S PURE! MAYBE IT WON'T DISAPPOINT ME LIKE YOU DID!"_

The 'it' was directed at me, and I felt a stab of anger towards the ugly lady.

"Shut up!" I yelled but it was drowned in her continuing cries, Sirius motioned to me to help him, and after some wrestling, we finally managed to heave the curtains shut over the portrait.

"So," Sirius panted, "I guess that's your grandmother."

We tried every charm we could think of.

"How 'bout we disarm the wall, maybe it will let go of the painting." I was getting desperate, every time we cast any sort of spell near the painting, the velvet curtains would fly open all on their own, and Walburga Black would fill the house with her lovely voice. She woke up the rest of the paintings and they started screaming too, Sirius had put a silencing charm on all of them by this point.

"Something tells me that won't work." It didn't, and we moved onto other things in the evening, resigning to just whisper in the main hallway. I slapped a piece of parchment on the banister, so that whoever came into the house could see it, it read 'please whisper in this area'. At the sound of my hand slapping on the metal rail, Walburga woke up again.

"Oh for fuck's sake."

 **222222222**

The next few days continued in the same sort of effect, cleaning, eating, sleeping, talking. On the third day, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape arrived, with numerous other wizards and witches I had never seen before. The portrait screamed again, and I took that to mean my little note had been stolen, or just nobody paid attention to it. It really could be either.

I stayed upstairs in my recently cleaned room, Sirius had said I couldn't join in, even though he thought it best I did. I had come downstairs just as they left, and McGonagall pulled me aside. She was wearing muggle attire of a long dress, and it looked very odd.

"When are you going for your apparition test Ms. Smith?" She faltered a slight bit on my name, and I wondered about if I should change that after I graduated.

"Well, not until after August thirteenth, that's my birthday." She pursed her lips slightly and nodded.

"The Weasley family will be here by then, ask one of them that works there to take you down. Good day." Professor McGonagall would always seem odd when she gave out advice and dressed in muggle clothes, I guess she just didn't do it that often.

"See you."

Five days in, we tackled the kitchen. Everything we touched was filled with spiders. Sirius didn't like spiders that much. I laughed the hardest I had in a long time when we opened a cupboard and more spiders than I could count crawled out, and when I looked beside me for Sirius, he was on top of the kitchen table.

"So how have you stayed hidden all this time?" I asked on the seventh day.

"Oh well, the man who's leading my arrest, Kingsley Shacklebolt, is an ally of the Order, and is feeding information currently that I'm in Tibet. A few months ago it was Guatemala." I smiled to myself.

On the eighth day, a woman I knew I'd instantly like showed up. She had vivid violet hair, and showed up all by herself.

" _HEATHENS IN MY HOUSE, SPAWN OF MUDBLOODS AND BLOOD TRAITORS ALIKE!"_

"Oh god, I'm sorry!" Sirius and I hurried to yank the drapes closed again, and when we did, I faced the young woman putting back up the troll leg umbrella stand that she obviously tripped over.

"Can't we just throw that thing out?" I asked Sirius, but he ignored me.

"What brings you here Tonks?"

Tonks smiled brightly, "I've come to discuss some things about the Weasley's and this house."

Sirius looked at the curtains covering the portrait of Satan (It was what I'd taken to calling her).

"Let's go to the kitchen, it's out of the way, you can come Veronica." I inwardly squealed at coming to a semi-official meeting.

"Tonks." The woman with violently violet hair said, holding out her hand.

"Veronica." She made a face as I shook her hand.

"Seems long, you should shorten it."

"Just call me Vern."

"Nice."

Tonks just wanted to know if you could apparate in and out of the house, and if not, then how to get there. She stayed for quite a while afterwards though, when we were talking, she had knocked over her water, and her hair changed from bright purple to blushing pink in what seemed embarrassment, as her cheeks turned the same colour.

"What?" Tonks laughed at the expression on my face. "I'm a metamorphmagus, means I can change what I look like at will."

"That's so cool!" I spent a lot of time asking Tonks to change what she looked like for me, obviously she found it quite fun. Sirius left after a while, and as he walked out, she changed her face to a perfect replica of his. I snorted into my hand and laughed even harder when I saw my own face peering back at me.

"Is that really what I look like from the side?" I questioned leaning closer across the table, right as I got super close, she turned back to herself, making me jump back.

Tonks left just a few hours later, but she promised to come back soon, she was so exciting.

The Weasley's came on the tenth day instead of the fourteenth. They apparated in pairs to the front porch, which was under protection. Mr. Weasley and Hermione arrived first, Hermione looking quite sick, obviously she didn't like side-along apparition that much.

Next was George and Ron, who were practically having a fight the second they materialized on the doorstep, and lastly Ginny and Fred came, with Mrs. Weasley a second behind them.

Fred looked shocked to see me at the house already, but he spotted Sirius and then his expression changed.

"Vern." George greeted me brightly as he walked past. "Got things to show you later." I snorted at his mischievous expression and began to help everybody get their things upstairs. I stopped dead on the staircase when I realized something.

"You two got your apparition license!" Fred and George looked up at me from a few stairs below.

"Huh, she's really smart." Fred said to George, then he turned his attention to me, "What tipped you off, the fact that we literally apparated here?"

"Shut up." I showed Hermione and Ginny into my room, I guess our room now, and led Ron up one floor further to his room, which Harry would join when he came.

"So our room's a floor up right?" George asked right before I started climbing the stairs again.

"Yeah wh-" _Crack._ The two of them and their trunks disappeared with a pop and I swore before running up the stairs to see them leisurely sitting on their trunks at the top of the staircase, blocking the hallway.

"Damn, what took you so long Vern?" Fred asked.

"So when do you turn seventeen again?" George added.

"On August thirteenth, and on August fourteenth, I'm going to apparate you across the country." I smiled, and opened the door to their room. "Your majesty's, here you go."

"Where was your room again? For scientific purposes." I shook my head at George.

"See you later, I'll call you for dinner."

"Oi Vern!" I looked at Fred, "Come up like half an hour before dinner, we made some new stuff." I grinned.

"Sure."

I was almost glad that Fred was still acting like nothing had happened between us. Wasn't it easier that way? To pretend that nothing did happen? I thought so at least. Saved me from stumbling through awkward pauses and looks, we were friends so easily, it lead me to believe that maybe being friends was better. I didn't want to risk that relationship again.


	2. Fly on the Wall

**Chapter 2: Fly on the Wall**

"Extendable ears, puking pastilles, the list goes on!" I picked up the flesh coloured string and wound it around my fingers.

"You know, we're not allowed in meetings because we're underage and still in school-"

"Just you're uderage Vern." I shot George a look.

"Anyway, after you've decided to forget about your younger siblings and their friends," I stared a little harder at George, "What if we put these outside the doors, and we can listen to what they're talking about."

Fred and George looked at each other, then back at me.

"They're having a meeting after dinner aren't they?" Fred asked, and I nodded, just then, we heard Mrs. Weasley's voice shouting, and then the portrait started screaming too.

"Bill mentioned he was coming round for dinner, I bet that's him."

"Tonks said she was coming too, they'll stick around for the meeting after." The twins looked at me in confusion.

"Who's Tonks?" They asked in unison.

"Oh she's great, I think she knew your brother Charlie in school, she mentioned him last time she was here, she's an auror."

"Cool." They said with identical grins.

We went downstairs and met up with Ron, Hermione and Ginny on the first landing. Bill and Tonks seemed to have arrived at the same time, and the general ruckus of them coming inside had caused Satan to start screaming again.

Diner passed in quiet introductions and good food for the first time in a while for Sirius and I. Us young folk retired to our rooms in a false sense of tiredness.

"What have you got planned Vern?" Ginny asked at my pacing.

"Extendable ears, we're planning on using them on the order meeting tonight." Both Ginny and Hermione's eyes went wide. We heard a telltale crack of apparition from above us, and then outside our door. Fred and George were there, and Ron was running down the stairs behind them.

They pulled the flesh coloured strings from their pockets, and in a horde, we crowded around the top of the staircase leading down to the dining room door, and Fred and George each dangled a string down, angling it carefully.

With a crackle, the earplug like piece sprang to life, and we fervently listened to the order meeting. It was rather boring, and we all took to sitting after a while of them just talking about the ministry and recruitment.

"All this work, and not even a mention of You-Know-Who's name." Fred said, and shook his head.

"What was that?!" Mrs Weasley's sharp voice penetrated our silence. Fred swore and both the twins jerked up the strings, I saw Ron's face go pale.

"Are these things foolproof? Or do they sometimes work both ways, and transmit our voices down the same way that their voices come up?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"They've been known to malfunction." George said quietly, and with a crack, they both apparated away and we ran. I darted to our room and shooed Ginny and Hermione inside. Mrs. Weasley opened the dining room door the exact second that I closed our bedroom one, and Ron disappeared around the curve in the staircase. We pulled out random stuff as we heard Mrs. Weasley's footsteps coming up the stairs, she knocked, and right before she came in, I righted my book so that it wasn't upside down.

"Shouldn't you girls be getting to bed?" She asked a bit shrewdly, though she didn't have any evidence that we were snooping, she probably thought that we were just covering for Fred and George.

"Yeah we were just reading a bit Mum." Ginny lied quite convincingly, she even had a fake sleepy smile on her face. I hid my real one as Mrs. Weasley left and continued up to check on the rest of her sons.

 **222222222**

The happy starting to summer soured off slightly as July got underway. We weren't really allowed to go outside, and after ten days, the pain of that hadn't set in yet, but after three weeks, I was aching to feel a breeze on my face.

It was the addition of Mad-Eye Moody really. He showed up on the eighteenth day with a vengeance. It was weird meeting him, considering he'd been my teacher for an entire year, but technically he hadn't been my teacher, because Professor Moody was an imposter.

By the way the real Mad-Eye acted, it was a wonder Dumbledore even employed him, or maybe the odd tendencies he had were magnified by spending a year locked in his own magical trunk, whatever. He was nuts.

Fred and George worked more on the extendable ears, and finally we could sit around the banister and listen without fear of our voices being transmitted back down. One time Tonks had opened the door to the dining room so fast to leave she had seen us, but she was a good sport, and ended up teaching Ginny and I how to tell if the door was charmed or not.

Our cleaning of the house got us almost nowhere, and the place still looked dismal when Harry's birthday rolled around, and Ron and Hermione brought the subject of him up again, no one had any concrete answers, but the following night, Hedwig arrived and brought them for us.

Harry had been attacked by dementors, everybody freaked out, Dumbledore showed up, and an order meeting happened that was so secret not even Tonks gave us any hints on what happened in it.

"Stupid bird pecked me until I wrote back." Ron irritably said. Even though we couldn't hear anything, the general seating arrangement around the railing still held true, and Ron held his hand that Harry's owl pecked while she waited for responding letters.

Sirius had been more solemn, not being allowed to do anything was getting to him. One late night, we ended up being the last two in the kitchen, and somehow he told me how frustrating it was to not do anything on the brink of a new war.

I understood somewhat, at least the freedom thing I could relate to. The bad papers and publicity, the illegal animagus, Sirius couldn't do anything without risking his safety, but he was a man of risk, and I could see how much it was affecting him.

Four days after the letters arrived, a team was sent to retrieve Harry. Two nights ago, Tonks had rounded up Hermione and I to help her write a believable letter to Harry's Aunt and Uncle to get them out of the house. Hermione believed that a lawn competition wouldn't work, but Tonks and I had faith, and it seemed to have paid off.

"I'm sure Harry'll only wanna talk to you two." Ginny said to Ron and Hermione, they agreed and resigned to wait in Ron's room for him, Ginny and I and the twins split up respectively. But there was a shared feeling that more would be said that night.

My intuition was correct, and very shortly after the Order meeting started, and we heard the quiet ruckus of Harry arriving, the shouting began from above us.

"SO YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE, HAVEN'T YOU? YOU'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER! ME, I'VE BEEN STUCK AT THE DURSLEYS' FOR A MONTH! AND I'VE HANDLED MORE THAN YOU TWO'VE EVER MANAGED AND DUMBLEDORE KNOWS IT — WHO SAVED THE SORCERER'S STONE? WHO GOT RID OF RIDDLE? WHO SAVED BOTH YOUR SKINS FROM THE DEMENTORS?"

Ginny groaned and rolled over on her bed, throwing the book she had been pretending to read to the ground. "There he goes." She said.

"That's nasty stuff."

"Fred told me he wanted to listen in on the meeting tonight, said it would be important, wanna see if the doors been charmed?" Ginny asked and started rifling through her trunk, pulling out some dungbombs.

"Sure, but do we have to throw dungbombs? Can't I just throw my boot?" She gave me a look as we walked downstairs and the sound of Harry's shouting got softer.

After only about four dungbombs, we knew our answer.

"Well shit." I cursed as the fourth one flew towards the door, only to fly back away like it hit some invisible shield.

"Better go tell them." We were going up to the twins room, but stopped when we heard their voices coming from Ron's room, Ginny knocked and the door opened to reveal all five of them standing around, Harry still looking positively ferocious.

"We thought we heard your voice Harry, very quietly though don't worry, how's it going?" George snorted, but Harry gave my words nothing more than a cold look.

"Anyways," Ginny started pointedly, "The extendable ears are a no-go Fred, the door's been imperturbed."

"How d'you know?" George asked, looking disappointed.

"Just chuck stuff at it, if it flies away its been imperturbed."

"Tonks showed us one night, after you all ran away cause you thought she'd rat us out." I added in.

"Damn, would've really liked to hear what Snape had to say." Fred said with a sneer, Harry looked disturbed.

"Snape's here?"

"Yeah, got some top secret report, still a git though."

"He's on our side now Fred." Hermione said, though there was a shadow of doubt in her voice.

George answered for him, "Doesn't stop him from being a git though now does it?"

"Bill doesn't like him either." Ginny said this as if it settled the matter, and I smiled a bit at her idolization of her oldest brother.

We talked about the rest of the Weasleys, carefully avoided the subject of Percy, who I knew had a massive row with Mr Weasley, and was now stonily ignoring the family in pursuit of his career.

We talked a bit about the Daily Prophet, it made me irritated, what lies the papers were spilling about Harry. We didn't get them anymore in the house, Mrs. Weasley would have a fit if we did.

The twins apparated away the second that the aforementioned Mrs. Weasley took a step outside the door. She knocked once, and poked her head in, "The meeting's over, you can all come and have dinner, also, who left a pile of dungbomb outside the kitchen door?"

"Oh just Crookshanks, he likes playing with them." Ginny lied convincingly.

"Oh, I thought it might be Kreacher, he likes doing odd stuff like that." Mrs. Weasley said as she left the room, probably expecting us to follow her, which we did.

Kreacher _was_ odd, I had only seen him once, and Sirius had barked at him to leave before I had properly met him, he said I wouldn't want to, and in some way I believed him. Though I did wonder why.

I met the twins on the way downstairs, and a thought popped into my head, "Hey, how did you guys keep making more joke stuff? I thought you had no money?"

George recoiled, "Who told you we had no money?"

My head turned back around to Fred as he spoke, "You're not gonna believe it but Harry gave us his Tournament winnings, he didn't want 'em."

George seemingly accepted the fact I knew they had had no money. "He went all noble and said he had enough money, that we should have some, and that with You-Know-Who back we would need some laughter in the world."

Satan's picture sprung to life as Tonks tripped over the umbrella stand for the umpteenth time and I clapped my hands over my ears and ran downstairs as all the other portraits started screaming and the hall was filled with horrible noise.

"Typical." I said when I finally reached the kitchen, continuing the conversation from a minute ago.

"I know right?" George chortled to me as he slipped past and we all sat down briefly, before getting back up again to help Mrs. Weasley get dinner ready.

A lot of people from the order meeting had stayed. Tonks and Bill were regulars at dinner, and they graced the table with their presence yet again. Mundungus was a relatively new one. I had heard from meetings the past few days that he was in deep shit for supposedly letting Harry get attacked by dementors in favour of some cash. But he seemed alright, if not a little dumb.

The dinner was quiet apart from Fred and George practically killing Harry and Sirius with a pot of soup near the beginning. Harry still seemed on edge, but the additions of people like Lupin, Mundungus, and Tonks seemed to make things a bit brighter. The real interesting stuff happened after dinner.

I was talking to Tonks about the school I was planning to apply to, to become a PI for the ministry. She was telling me that it and the auror programme were intertwined, and that she had visited the school a few years ago, it was in Ireland.

"... thought the first thing you'd ask after you got here was stuff about Voldemort?" Sirius' loud voice carried to the opposite end of the table, where Mrs. Weasley and Sirius seemed to having a mental standoff.

"I did! Ron and Hermione don't know, they said they haven't been allowed to order meetings." Harry protested. Ron and Hermione had the same expression on their faces, nervous curiosity.

"He deserves to get his questions answered after being holed up for a month-" Sirius started, but was interrupted by George.

"Hold on! Why does Harry get to have his questions answered?"

"What about ours?" Fred said angrily, " _You're too young to be in the Order_!" He mocked in his scarily accurate Mrs. Weasley impression.

"It's not my fault that nobody's told you anything, it's your parents decision-" Sirius looked rather irritated as someone cut him off yet again, this time it was me.

"Everybody hold up, especially you Sirius, you're my parent but you've been telling me for a month that I can't know anything! Why's that?" There was silence for a moment around the table, I had locked eyes with Sirius, and neither of us were looking away any time soon.

He did first, but didn't answer me, and I felt rather snuffed. The resulting argument between him and Mrs. Weasley was like watching an aggressive tennis match. It was scary, but you just couldn't look away.

"Molly, you are not the only person at this table who cares for Harry, Sirius _sit down_." Lupin's voice was always calm, I had only heard it raised once, and it wasn't something I wanted to hear again. But I could hear the tension. Mrs Weasley looked as if she was about to faint, and Sirius sat down, his face impassive, so still that his features could be carved from solid rock.

"I want to stay." Harry said decisively.

"Fine, but Ron, Ginny, Hermione, Fred, George and Veronica, all go upstairs now please." Mrs Weasley said tersely, looking rather angry and put out.

"That's not fair!" The twins shouted.

"I don't want to!" Ginny yelled hotly.

"If Harry's allowed why aren't we!?" Ron shouted for himself and Hermione, who would probably be shouting herself if she didn't have such problems with disobeying authority.

"Molly, you cannot tell my daughter what to do, she will be staying." Sirius's voice drowned out the protests as he spoke up for me, and I nodded my thanks.

"Fred and George are of age, we can't make them do anything." Mr. Weasley piped in, sounding awfully tired.

Mrs. Weasley took a heaving breath. Her eyes darted from me to Sirius to Harry and her kids, then back to me again. "Fine!"

"Harry'll just tell us everything later, won't you harry?" Ron bit out, Harry looked at him for a moment.

"Yeah, course I will." Both Ron and Hermione beamed.

"Fine! I give up, Ginny- BED!" Ginny was not quiet, she raged and stormed all the way up the stairs, shouting and stomping, and waking every portrait up on her ascent. She slammed the door so heavily I could hear it through the portraits shrieking.

"Well." Sirius started only after Lupin returned from closing the Satan's curtains.

It was no new news. I exchanged a look with Fred about twenty minutes in. We knew this. It was all they'd talked about in the meetings we had listened to. Where Voldemort was, what he was doing, who was he recruiting. His methods, his madness. It was annoying to have to have a whole fight to listen to the same stuff over again. I suppose I wasn't expecting them to give up their deepest darkest secrets to a group of teenagers, but still.

We had reached a lull. My mind was reeling, listening in a damp hallway and actually being there was different. I was thinking about Voldemort, his plans. How the ministry was falling apart due to fear, how everything seemed to be falling into place for an evil tyrant. Everything except for this group of witches and wizards that grouped up in a basement every week.

"I think that's enough." Mrs Weasley's voice startled me, she looked furious.

""You can't order us around-" Fred began.

"Watch me." Mrs Weasley snarled, and I realized it would probably be best to leave it at that for one night.

Only two more quips and we were walking upstairs.

"Vern?" A voice spoke from behind me.

"Hmm?" I turned to face Sirius, who squeezed past me on the stairs and motioned for me to follow him into the drawing room.

"Why are we in here? The doxie curtains aren't being cleaned tonight I hope." I said, eyeing the curtains overlooking the street, they were faintly buzzing and rustling.

"No, I actually feared you might be irritated at me for not telling you anything when I could have." He said, I turned to face him, seeing the wry smile on his face.

"Well, there is that of course, don't let me forget."

"I didn't think anybody else would approve." He said, I looked past him stonily to the wall I knew was covered with a tapestry of my family tree.

"And I didn't think you gave two shits about anybody else's approval." Sirius heaved a sigh.

"I'm sorry." I knew he meant it, but I wasn't finished, I had to get out what I felt.

"Harry's here for a few hours and you wanna spill every damn secret these walls hold to him. What am I? Some homeless person on the street?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Prove it." I held my head high. I looked Sirius full in the face, and it was the same expression I wore, staring back at me. Defiance, irritability, hurt.

"I don't need to." He almost seethed, his composure dangerously close to cracking, too bad mine was already shattered.

"Yes you do! You would break a whole fucking mountain down for Harry James Potter! You'd shatter it to the ground! And while there's nothing wrong with that, you have to remember that I am right behind you! I'm here too, I don't care if I'm only here because of a drunken whim eighteen years ago. I don't care one bit, because _I am here,_ and you're the only family I've got!" I didn't realize I was crying until I felt a tear slip off my chin. I wiped the moisture away angrily.

"I don't know what to say to that." Sirius' voice was quiet, and he sat down heavily in a chair that was behind him.

I shook my head, "I don't expect you to, I don't think there's anything you can say right now."

I left then. Crossed the hall to my room, Hermione was filling Ginny in about what was said after dinner, and if any of them heard anything that had been said in the other room, they didn't say.


	3. Dangerous Places

**Chapter 3: Dangerous Places**

"HE GOT OFF! HE GOT OFF! HE GOT OFF!"

"SHUT UP" Mrs. Weasley roared to Ginny, Fred, and George, and basically the whole table erupted with laughter, knowing she was pleased that Harry had gotten all the charges against him dropped.

"Anyway," Mrs. Weasley turned to me, her face rather red, and I fought hard to keep the smile off my face. "You turn seventeen tomorrow, and I think Bill's agreed to take you down to the ministry, haven't you Bill?" She turned to address her oldest son who was at the far side of the table.

He snapped out of his conversation with Sirius and smiled automatically, "Yes Mum."

"Great." I said, smiling a little tensley, I was happy for Harry not being unfairly expelled, but I also didn't want to fail my apparition test.

"I'll make a cake up for your birthday tomorrow, what kind do you want?" Mrs. Weasley asked, turning her attention to me, I thought for a moment.

"Sometimes muggles make a cake, its called marble. Like chocolate and vanilla swirled together but not blended? Have you heard of it?" Mrs Weasley smiled widely.

"No, but it's alright, I'll make it for you."

The next day dawned bright and hot before the sun had even risen. Bill and I left early, so he could get to his job on time, and I could beat the rush of people trying to get their apparition license.

"So just go down that hallway and it's the first door on your right, I'll come back in a few hours, good luck!" Bill was gone as fast as we had apparated in. I walked down the hallway and into the room Bill pointed out. It was filled with signs and directions for where to go to wait in line.

It was filled with people, a lot were around my age, but most were older, which surprised me, I thought it was common to get your licence when you turned seventeen.

"What's up Smith?" I turned to the side to look at the voice who spoke my name.

"Warrington?" It was Warrington, last I heard, him and Alicia were still dating, so I resigned to be as friendly as I could, even if the guy used to be sort of a dick.

"Yeah, you getting your licence too?" He came up closer to me, and I nodded.

"Yeah, it's finally my birthday." I joked halfheartedly. I didn't know Warrington very well, that was more Alicia's alley to make inter house relationships work.

"Cool, I just wanted to mention something now that I'm here." All of a sudden he angled himself so that we were very closed off to other witches and wizards, even though we were in the same room. I didn't step back, even though I wanted to.

"Go on then." I felt a pit of worry emerge in my stomach.

"There's rumours about you, about who you are and what your family stands for, in some circles." My eyes snapped up to meet his, they didn't look malicious, as I thought they would. He actually just looked concerned.

"What are you saying?" I knew exactly what he was saying. Somehow, the reformed Death Eaters knew about my parentage.

"Your Dad's a target, don't become one yourself. Have a nice day Veronica." Warrington smiled and disappeared back into the crowds of people in the office. I felt the blood drain out of my face. Of course Sirius was a target, he defected from his parents ideals and became a rebellious pureblood who fought for the opposing side in the first war. Would the same be thought of me?

When my name was finally called, and I walked into the room with the examiner, I cleared my mind desperately.

"Veronica Smith, you will be asked to apparate from this room, to this one." The older wizard waved his wand, and the wall became translucent. I was given two minutes to memorize and envision what the room looked like before I was asked to apparate.

The wizard apparated first, and held his clipboard, ready for me to follow. I closed my eyes and envisioned the room, twisting and reappearing from nothingness. The feeling of apparition was still slightly unusual for me, but I stuck my landing in the other room, and discreetly looked over myself for anything unusual. Luckily all my fingers and body parts seem to be there.

"Excellent." The examiner said after he finished grading me. "A pass, you will go on our records, if you ever get splinched or injured in apparition, we will know you were licensed. That's all, have a nice day."

I left the office quickly, not looking around the waiting room as I left, in case Warrington was still there. Bill met up with me just outside of the office, and brightly smiled when I told him I had passed.

"We should apparate back, for practice." He said as we walked to one of the apparition points.

"What if I get splinched? I'm used to apparating into hoops, not across London." Bill shrugged, and I saw a bit of the rebellious curse breaker.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Bill disappeared with a faint pop, and I sighed. Luckily, when I twisted myself into nothingness, focusing very hard on the doorstep of number twelve Grimmauld Place, I actually got there.

"See that wasn't so bad." I rolled my eyes.

"One of these days I'm just going to die." I said, smiling the slightest bit as Bill apparated back to work, he was just my chaperone after all.

The rest of the day was uneventful, turning seventeen marked my integration into the adult world, and I performed my first legal spell outside of the boundaries of Hogwarts.

Living at the headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix was much less interesting then I originally thought. I had been here the whole summer, and very little had been done that was thrilling. I had thought it would be grand espionage, instead it was just a bunch of witches and wizards talking secretively in the dining room every week.

After the initial meeting that we were allowed to eavesdrop on, even Sirius didn't want me listening in on the following meetings.

"Where did this sudden turn of events come from?" I asked sullenly one night nearing the end of August. We hadn't been getting along very well the past few weeks, ever since I accused him of not loving me basically. I longed for the simplicity of the first few weeks of summer, when it was just the two of us, that had been so much fun.

"You've got other things to worry about apart from Voldemort, focus on school, not the impending war." He said.

"How can I focus on something else when, as you just said, the war is _impending_." I seethed back, not giving him time to respond as I ran up the stairs. I didn't want to get into another fight with him, leaving the situation seemed the best option, if a bit cowardly.

I was still thinking about what Warrington had said when I flopped down on my bed. It hadn't left my mind, and as my last year of school approached, there was an acute sense of confusion and doubt. I went to sleep with war on my mind, it didn't make for pleasant dreams.

 **222222222**

It was the last day of the summer holidays when our letters arrived, it was the morning when the owls were pecking at the window and Hermione threw it open with fervor.

"Finally! I hope we don't have don't have any new books, the lists came too late to get any real shopping done." She muttered as she gave a letter to both me and Ginny, who was standing beside us, smiling slightly at Hermione's obvious distress.

I opened my own letter, the books were all the same as last year, except for a different one for Defence Against the Dark Arts. I assumed as much considering we would have another new teacher. I noted the absence of a head girl badge and made a mental note to say 'I told you so.' to George later, who thought it would be the funniest thing ever if I got it.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" Ginny asked Hermione, who hadn't moved from her spot at the window, back facing towards us. She turned slowly, her face very pale, except for her cheeks which were rather flushed.

"I got prefect!" She thrusted the parchment towards us, holding on tightly to the red and gold badge in her hand though.

"That's great Hermione!" I said brightly, and Ginny echoed my statements. I didn't want to have authority, but this was obviously Hermione's calling, and I was happy for her.

"Thanks! I bet Harry got the other one-" She broke off to stare at the little pin, happiness shining on her face, "Oh, I'll go see now, the owl probably woke them up." She vanished out the door with just a flash of bushy hair behind her.

"My money was on her and Dean Thomas." Ginny said absentmindedly as we walked downstairs for breakfast.

"Ooh, yeah. I bet you're right, Harry's caused way too much trouble, I don't know much about the other people in his year though." Ginny nodded, and Mrs. Weasley bustled over.

"What's this you're talking about?" She asked.

"Oh, the booklists finally came." Ginny answered, picking up some toast, skirting around the fact that Hermione was a prefect She was probably right in assuming that Hermione would want to tell the news herself.

"Oh, well the laundry's done so I'll talk to Ron and Harry on my way past about going to Diagon Alley this afternoon for some supplies."

"Alright, great Mum." I smiled into my eggs. Ginny had such a way with Mrs. Weasley.

There was a few minutes of comfortable silence, nobody more came down from upstairs, the twins were probably sleeping and Sirius never woke up before eleven.

There was a shriek from an upstairs bedroom, sounded a bit like Mrs. Weasley.

"Think that's Mum freaking out over Hermione or Harry?" Ginny asked pensively, standing up and placing her bowl in the filthy sink that retained its horrific stains even after the most ruthless of cleaning spells.

A few more minutes passed before the sounds of a small argument, and then what very much sounded like the twins outrageous laughter. It was so loud it echoed down the stairs.

"What are they laughing at?" I groaned, and got up from the table just as Mrs. Weasley came back down, her eyes filled with proud tears.

"Hermione and Ron are prefects! Isn't that wonderful!" I imagined that both mine and Ginny's faces were the same mask of shock. Ron a prefect? It wasn't that I didn't find him capable, he just didn't seem like the type.

"That's what they're laughing at." Ginny muttered to me and shook her head before answering her mother. "That's great Mum, are we throwing a party?"

"Well yes, I figured I would ask you two to set it up? You can just give me your book list Veronica and I'll get everything you need," I immediately offered to come with, if only so I could buy my own things, because I knew Mrs Weasley would be offended at me giving her money, even though I wasn't her child. "Oh no, don't do that, Veronica, you just worry about charming a banner to hang there. Yes. That would be perfect." She bustled out soon after that, leaving Ginny and I attempting to scrounge together enough material to make a banner.

I would have just transfigured one out of thin air, but I wasn't that talented. "You keep doing this, I'm just going to pop upstairs for a moment." I twisted into mid air, and appeared right in front of Fred and George, still guffawing from over ten minutes ago.

"You two are pathetic." I said, leaning on my one foot.

"It's funny! Ron getting prefect!" Just George saying it set them both off again and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, what are you anyways, our Mum?" I fought down another eye roll at that, typical of Fred to be nasty when it really wasn't needed.

"I would have disowned you by now if I was your mother." George made a face.

"Yikes, is threatening family separation part of your daily schedule now?"

"Only when it comes to you two. Please don't come into the main hall for the next hour. Thanks." With that I disapparated back downstairs.

I charmed the piece of fabric we found to be scarlet and gold, and Ginny recited an embroidery spell she found in an old book so that I could write words on the material.

CONGRATULATIONS

RON AND HERMIONE

NEW PREFECTS

Hermione's name had gotten a little dicey near the end, slanting downwards a slight bit, but overall the banner was bright and colourful, and me and Ginny folded it up to hang later, as we went to pack our things.

It was always strange at the end of summer to pack up again, it felt as if you just unpacked yesterday. But it was always entertaining to try and find belongings after two months of settling in somewhere. Ginny's always ended up in the wildest places. Not three years ago she had lost a new book for her first year and the Easter break of that school year I had finally found it buried a foot underground in the garden. It was still anyone's guess on how it ended up there.

This year we had lost a lot of random stuff. Ron theorized that the house elf Kreacher had stolen it, apparently he had caught him pocketing strange things away before. All I knew was that if Kreacher had it, I didn't want it back.

The party that night was nice, a sort of last hurrah before school started, most of the order showed up, even Kingsley, who had a deep slow voice that could tell any story. The kitchen was always the most habitable place of the whole house, and by the end of the night, barely anyone was ever was sitting on the tall backed chairs. Ginny and I liked to sit on the floor with Crookshanks, throwing little spiders we found in the cupboards around for him, he liked to chase and eat them. I noticed Ron would always avoid that whole section of the kitchen when we did it.

That night at around midnight I finally walked up to bed, wishing for Hogwarts. It was sad that this was my last year, it had all gone by so fast, it hadn't been easy or fun all of the time, but sometimes I wanted to just go back, if only for a few moments.

We got up early the next morning, and even though we got up early we were still late, and Mrs. Weasley was stressed. Ginny told me she'd had a boggart incident last night, I hadn't wanted to know what that meant. Mrs. Weasley was so stressed, that Fred and George actually tried to do something nice. Too bad it backfired.

"Fred you idiot!"

"HEADS!" Ginny and I were standing at the top of the stairs when the twins voices shouted down from two stories above. I didn't need to be told twice, and dove out of the way, Ginny was not so lucky, and turned around just to be hit in the stomach by a full sized school trunk.

"Ginny!" I yelled out as she tumbled fully down two flights of stairs, sitting up slowly at the bottom, holding her head, one of the twins trunks still floating in the air beside me, at the point of impact.

"Oh god oh god oh god." Fred chanted as he vaulted down the stairs and over the railings to Ginny. George was close behind, and started trying to close the curtains over my grandmother that had burst open when Ginny had fallen past them.

"FILTHY HALF BREEDS DESTROYING MY PRIDE"

"Shut up!" George yelled, his voice somehow managing to find a pitch around hers.

"FRED! GEORGE! WHAT DID YOU DO?" Mrs Weasley's voice joined the mix, shouting at the top of her lungs as she rounded the corner to see me on the ground two floors above, George trying to pull the curtains closed without success, and Fred trying to help Ginny up, who was quite dazed no doubt.

"We have no time for the curtains George." I snapped as I stood up and went downstairs to tear his trunk out of midair, pulling mine behind me at the same time. Mrs. Weasley said Moody would be taking all or luggage, so I left both trunks beside the staircase, Ajax hooting at me as I walked away.

Mrs. Weasley was patching Ginny up, and people of the guard for Harry started arriving. All in all, over Mrs. Weasley's continued screaming, and no one bothering to close the curtains over the screaming portrait, the house was very loud.

Ron and Harry stumbled down last, looking as if they just woke up, Mrs Weasley was currently attempting to shuffle us out the door, just as I stepped past the doorstep, a furry presence brushed up against my leg. I looked down to see Sirius in dog form on the pavement, smiling his wolfish dog grin up at me.

"Wonder how you got away with that one." I muttered wryly to him as I walked past, he barked out a laugh. Sirius had been moody in the last weeks of summer, I supposed it was because the people that brought life to the musty and dusty house were all leaving, I'd be moody too.

We walked to the corner, and an old woman was standing there, something about her mannerisms struck me as familiar, but only when she spoke did I know who it was.

"Wotcher! Better hurry up haven't we?" Tonks had her hair grey and tightly curled, and her features were marred by a barrage of wrinkles.

We picked up the pace a bit more from there, we must have looked very odd, but nobody we saw on the street said anything. Sirius ran around like he was an actual dog, chasing pigeons and scaring cats, I wondered when the last time he was outside was. Maybe when he was at Hogwarts.

Once we got to Kings Cross, it was a simple matter of casually leaning on the barrier a few people at a time, and emerging on the other side to the Hogwarts express, we didn't have time for lots of goodbyes, it was a minute until the train left. We hurriedly stashed our trunks in the belly of the steam engine once Moody arrived with them, and said goodbye to everybody.

All groups of us had arrived with different people in order to make sure we weren't followed. I had gone with Harry, Mrs Weasley and Tonks, and Sirius too if you count dogs, Ron and Hermione had gone with Mr Weasley, who was quite red faced as we hurried about, and Fred, George and Ginny went with Lupin. I feared that Ginny would still be angry at them for knocking her down the stairs, but she seemed fine as they rounded the bend towards the train.

I got a hug from Tonks and Mrs. Weasley, and even Sirius tried to rear up to my level, I brushed him down, and instead knelt down beside him to give him a quick hug. "At least try and act like a dog." I smirked, and when I got up on the train, his wolfish grin looked back at me.

We watched them go out of sight as the train pulled out of the station, the familiar rocking motion taking us out of the city.

"Well, can't stand here all day, got business with Lee, you coming Vern?" Fred said, clapping his hands together once.

I nodded, "See you guys." I waved to Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny as we started traveling down the train to where we normally sat, I couldn't wait to see Angelina and Alicia again.

There was something to be said for normalcy. Me, Angelina and Alicia talked about our summers, Fred, George and Lee started making up order forms for their joke shop products that they'd made over the summer. It was just like it should be, considering we were going to our last year at Hogwarts, starting tonight. Angelina was the new quidditch captain, and neither me or Lee had any more school duties, it was gearing up to be the perfect send off into the real world before the impending war. It was rather bittersweet.


	4. The Umbitch

**Chapter 4: The Umbitch**

The day on the train passed quietly, it was a typical September day, one second bright and sunny, the next dark and gloomily cloudy. When night had just fallen, we pulled into the station and started the ride back up to the school.

"I'm always shocked at how short the first years are." Lee said as we walked through the great hall, the first years huddled in a clump to the right, we must have been at the tail end of the train, usually traversing the Black lake by boat took awhile for the first years.

"Now that we're seventh years they seems even smaller." Angelina said, peering down at one. She was rather tall though.

"I don't think you can speak up on the matter Lee, considering your still averaging out around that height." Alicia said snippiply, I hid my smile from the very affronted Lee.

We all settled down in the great hall, sitting rather far away from the teachers table. "Faster exit if you sit near the end." Fred theorized.

"Good luck hearing what anybody's saying." Angelina bit back, he stared at her like she had grown a third head.

"We're wizards, or have you forgotten?"

"Who's that?" Lee interrupted pointing discreetly up to the head table, we all had to squint a bit, but the woman standing right beside Dumbledore was somebody I could not remember seeing before. I would definitely remember her too, if I had seen her before, it would be hard not to with the getup she was sporting.

Pink everything. Pink dress, stretched awkwardly over her squat frame, pink cardigan layered over that, and an awful pink headband nestled in her grey brown hair.

"If that's our new teacher, I'm going to have a hard time going to class with her looking like that." Alicia said, an expression of horror on her face, constantly the fashion connoisseur Alicia was.

She was standing up fully, and then turned to sit down at her seat at the table, though it didn't make much of a difference she was so short. Her face was hard to see from the back of the hall, but I could notice her pouchy cheeks. They sort of reminded me of a toad.

Nobody could really focus through the hat saying it's poem, even if it was a bit weird this year, or the sorting, I just wanted to know who that ugly woman was. It was probably mean to call her ugly, maybe she had a lovely disposition.

We were all hungry, personally I was starving, but the hall still dimmed to quietness as Dumbledore stood up to make the usual beginning of year speech before we ate. I wondered if it would be any different this year, considering the papers had been heavily denying You-know-Who's return, even though a select few knew it was false.

The food at Hogwarts was good no doubt, it might have even held a candle to Mrs Weasley's, but after only having small snacks on the train the whole way up, it tasted like the best thing in the world.

"House team quidditch tryouts will be held on-" Dumbledore speaking was usual, I was dozing off after having stuffed myself full of the great bread the kitchens produced, when Dumbledore had started going over the usual policies. Stay out of the forest, don't make Filch mad, the usual. What was not usual, was the way his speech broke off.

" _Hem hem."_ My eyes snapped open to their full capacities and I leaned forward to see the assumed new teacher herself, coughing and standing up, acting all as if she didn't just interrupt Professor Dumbledore.

Full credit to him, he took it in stride, acting as if her making a speech was part of the plan all along, the other teachers, were not so full of tact. McGonagall looked as if she would like to cast a stunning spell at the woman right here and now, and if possible, Snape's leering face was even darker than normal. I made eye contact with Angelina across the table. She had an expression that read as, 'my god this woman has no idea' I couldn't agree more.

"I didn't catch her name?" I whispered to Fred beside me, it was true, I was practically asleep through the teacher introductions.

"Umbridge." He whispered back. We weren't saying much, nobody was. It was obvious that every student in the huge hall wanted to know just what this Professor Umbridge had to say for herself.

"Thank you Headmaster, for those kind words of welcome." If there was anything worse than her awful clothes, it was her _voice._ High pitched and breathy, it made me cringe, and sounded as if it was better suited to a small child then a grown woman.

"Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking up at me!" My face certainly was not happy, when I took a quick peek around, neither was anybody else's, if anything, I'd assume we all looked rather taken aback at being spoken to like we were under the age of seven.

"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all and I'm sure we'll all be very good friends!" She began her tirade again, and this time, some barely contained giggles echoed out through the hall. Angelina and Alicia had identical grins on their faces across the table.

She cleared her throat again, and when she spoke for the fourth and hopefully last time, her voice was slightly less breathy, more business like, though the girlish sweetness was still there. "The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the wizarding community must be passed down the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching."

I was already practically sleeping again, Umbridge was no Dumbledore, and could not effortlessly command a room. She kept talking though, undeterred by the numerous conversations now breaking out across the hall as she kept talking.

"... perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." A few teachers clapped, only Dumbledore put real gusto into it as Umbridge finished her boring speech and sat down again. Folding her hands, either oblivious to every body staring at her as if she was an idiot, or simply not caring.

Dumbledore stood back up, but almost no one was listening anymore, Umbridge had put a sizable dent in the night's mood.

"That was weird." Alicia said.

"Funny too." Lee chortled, surprisingly it was George who intervened.

"Preaching about keeping tradition and prohibition? Sounds controlling." When he put it like that, I could see what he meant. 'Pruning practices that ought to be prohibited' flashed through my mind, it was a little ominous.

We walked upstairs as normal, the whole school ebbing to half as Hufflepuffs and Slytherins went downstairs and us and the Ravenclaws went up. Then splitting in half again as we travelled north to our tower and them south.

Gryffindor tower was a welcome sight, and we climbed the winding mahogany stairs for what seemed like forever before reaching the top one, with a plaque that read '7th years'. The room was identical to all of our others, just a better view. The beds were in the same positions as every other dorm, and there were only three of them, we immediately claimed them, Alicia spreading her copious wardrobe on the floor. It was the usual.

 **222222222**

"Putting up a sign advertising practically illegal human testing was really a bad idea with Hermione Granger being a prefect." Alicia said bluntly as we stood with the whole crowd looking at the notice that had been pinned, presumably last night.

"I don't think even she can stop them." I said glumly, if Fred and George wanted to test their products on students, then Fred and George would test their products on students.

Alicia shook her head. Angelina had already disappeared down to the great hall, muttering about tryouts, I wondered how much stress being the quidditch captain would put on her if it was the first day of term and this was the result.

We found Angelina in the great hall, tracking down previous members of the team, which really just included Harry, Katie Bell, the twins and Alicia.

"Hi Alicia, how was your summer? Great, so quidditch tryouts are this friday at five, I want the whole team there so we can figure out a good replacement for Oliver now that he's gone. Cool, see you there." Both me and Alicia were very taken aback.

"Angie, you told me this all on the train-" Angelina left as quickly as she came, not looking up from her paper of names she had infront of her. She stopped the twins just as they walked into the hall and spoke to them next.

"Hi Fred, hi George, how was your summer? Great, so quidditch tryouts.."

"I can't listen anymore, we have to leave her in her misery." Alicia said, her face a mask of confusion at Angelina's behavior, I noticed that even the twins hadn't even tried anything strange since she started talking to them.

"I'm sure she'll be alright." My voice held a tenor of doubt.

McGonagall handed out the timetables not five minutes later, and I looked over mine, it was almost the same as last year, which made sense considering I was taking the exact same courses. I really wasn't looking forward to end of year NEWTs, where we would be tested on the past two years of school. It had meant I'd had to keep all of my notes and essays from year six to use as study material, and it was seriously taking up space in my trunk.

Alicia and I walked to our first class, Beginners Medicine, it was a NEWT course, taught by Madam Pomfrey in the hospital wing, but it was basically just regular first-aid. There was only one class a week, and if you skipped half of them you'd be missing nothing. Usually we just brewed potions in the storerooms for Madam Pomfrey's stockpiles.

After that short class, we went to Herbology, then Charms, then lunch. It was rather boring, first day always was, just recap on what you did last year and what the expectations for this year were. It was all any teacher could do to talk about NEWTs.

By the time dinner rolled around, the school was alight with a new rumour concerning Harry. People had been whispering about him in class the whole day, it was rather irritating, but it was the same old stuff. This was new.

"Did Harry actually yell at Umbridge?" Fred guffawed as we walked back to the tower after dinner.

"Ron reckons he did, I saw him in the hallway before dinner and he told me the whole story, you know how he's like though." George piped up.

"Yeah." Fred trailed off, I flashed back to the Sirius Black incident of fifth year, when Ron's storytelling had spiralled out of control.

"She seemed off her rocker last night- Mimbulus Mimbletonia." I said to the fat lady, who swung open accordingly to let us climb inside.

"Yeah we have her first thing tomorrow, can't wait." I couldn't tell if Fred was being sarcastic or not, probably a bit of both.

"We've got a whole list of ickle firsties to try the Fainting Fancies tonight Vern, you wanna join the list?" I knew George was teasing, but I rolled my eyes, if I knew Hermione she'd cause a scene, she was already eyeing them suspiciously from the overstuffed armchair by the fire.

"I'll pass." I walked up to the dormitory, and just fell asleep, I wasn't sure why I was so tired, it just happened.

The next morning, when we all walked in to Defence Against the Dark Arts, Umbridge was already there, sitting at the front of the room. This was a big class, considering our teachers hadn't exactly been consistent, most people passed the OWL with enough qualifications to make it to the NEWT level, so the classroom was filled right up by the time the second bell rung, signalling the start of class.

I was talking to Alicia about charms homework, and I could hear Fred and George behind me, messing around with a piece of loose paper, it soared over my head a second later, landing in front of me in the shape of a dragon.

"Would you like a prize?" I asked, turning around in my seat, before Fred could open his mouth to answer a familiar cough echoed from the front of the classroom.

" _Hem hem_!" I cringed and turned back around in my seat, Umbridge now standing in front of her desk, a chalkboard pulled up beside her.

"Good morning class!" Nobody said anything back, and her bright and falsely cheery face darkened a little.

"When I say good morning, I expect an answer, let's try that again." She smiled brightly, her little pointed teeth shining out from her baggy mouth. "Good Morning Class!"

"Good morning Professor." It was a muttered statement, surrounded by a few laughs and giggles, we hadn't had to greet teachers like that since first year.

"We'll have to work on that." She said sweetly, and I exchanged a look with Angelina, who leaned forward from her spot across the room to give me said look.

"As seventh year students, you are responsible for taking your Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests this year, as such, this will be a heavily study based course, so that you all may succeed to your best potential." Confusion sprung up in my brain. Heavily study based? The NEWTs were a combination of practical and written, and we had only learned half of the material so far, if all we did was study, we would fail our NEWTs.

Apparently most people had the same idea going through their mind.

"Yes, Mr…?" Umbridge said, seemingly looking straight at me, I turned around and saw Fred with his hand up.

"Weasley," He started, "And just a quick question, but how are we supposed to do the spells at the NEWT level, if all we've done is study all year?" He certainly had balls, I'd give him that. I didn't take Umbridge that seriously, but I felt as if there was more to her than what appeared.

"I'm glad you've asked such an important question Mr Weasley, and I would be happy to answer." She actually looked very unhappy that anyone was questioning her methods, "These spells do not need to be practised to be executed perfectly, all you need is lots of theory practice and work, and then come testing time, you will all pass with flying colours!"

I saw several more hands raise in my peripheral vision, but Umbridge pressed on without acknowledging them. "So, let's begin, wands away! Here I have extra copies of the textbook if any of you do not have your own, please begin reading chapter one."

I pulled my textbook out of my bag, it was the weird one we found on our booklist, that Mrs. Weasley had to get the last day of summer. It was small and had cartoonish drawings on the front.

 _Dark Arts Defence_

 _Necessary for N.E.W.T.'s_

To be frank, it looked like a joke, when I opened up the book and began reading chapter one, titled _Let's go over N.E.W.T's,_ I knew it was one.

"Are they serious?" Alicia hissed next to me, flipping through the textbook with no care. It was heavily illustrated, each chapter seemingly going over a different spell in the curriculum.

"This is stupid, I have better things to do with my time." I hissed back.

" _Hem hem_!" I looked up, to find Umbridge staring directly at me, for real this time."Ms…?" She said in the same tone she used when talking to Fred earlier, who had surprisingly shut up.

"Smith." I said, attempting to keep any contempt out of my voice, it didn't really work.

"Ms Smith, there will be no talking in my classroom, you have your material, please read it silently. Do you understand?" Something about this woman really pissed me off, the condescension, rudeness, whatever it was, I grit my teeth against it.

"Of course, so sorry." If she heard the blatant sarcasm, she didn't say anything.

The class was so boring I felt my eyes sliding closed against my own accord, the book was basic, probably more suited to a nine-year olds reading level, and was practically useless. After what seemed like sixty years instead of minutes the loud echoing bell rang out through the school, and we all jumped up, everybody having been waiting for this exact moment.

"Would have expected you two to put up more of a fuss." I heard Angelina say to the twins as we left the classroom, but when I looked at their faces, I knew that that was exactly what they were planning to do.

"In due time Angie, not to worry, the Umbitch'll get what's coming." I couldn't help but grin a little at Fred's crude nickname.

"That's pretty good actually."


End file.
